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Parsnips

A fried cake made from boiled and mashed parsnips mixed with breadcrumbs, egg, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Parsnips

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil parsnips in slightly salted water until tender.

  2. Remove the skin and mash the parsnips.

Form and fry

  1. For each cup of mashed parsnips, add ½ cup bread crumbs, 1 egg, pepper, and salt to taste.

  2. Form the mixture into cakes.

  3. Fry the cakes in butter until brown.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Parsnip + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,109 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Parsnips
Form the bulk of the cakes, giving body and a naturally sweet flavour.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture from the mashed parsnips so the mixture holds its shape.
Egg
Binds the mixture together so the cakes hold their form while frying.
Butter
Fat for frying that promotes browning and adds richness to the crust.

The step that matters

Forming and frying the cakes. If the mixture is too wet, the cakes may fall apart in the pan. Frying in butter over moderate heat lets the outside brown before the inside dries out.

Swap the parsnip

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, egg, pepper, butter):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Parsnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, egg, pepper, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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